Under the Table
by Coletta
Summary: Integra gets her drink on with Alucard. Presented in two parts.
1. Chapter 1

Alucard had little tolerance for alcohol, or any consumable other than blood. But occasionally a little sip of wine was the perfect remedy that could put him right to sleep. For that reason, he had a penchant for keeping a bottle close to his coffin.

When she was twelve, and she had only known Alucard for a short while, Integra misunderstood the constant presence of the bottle.

She thought, _he drinks_.

She made no judgment. Her beloved father had drank, had a passion for scotch. If anything, Integra thought positively about the occasional spirit; it was one of the few times she saw a smile on her father's sunken, haunted face.

Integra had no use for the scotch after he was dead.

She looked sadly at the half-empty bottle, sitting lonely in her father's abandoned study. She lifted it up gingerly. Under it, there was a ring of bare wood, surrounded by a film of dust.

The study was just as he left it; piles of paper stacked hap hazardously on every flat surface, books stacked on the floor, an ash tray on the desk, full of cigarette butts, and, of course, a bottle of scotch on the blotter. It was as if he had just gotten up from his chair, and would be back any moment. It was as if he had been uprooted suddenly and unexpectedly, like the a volcano erupted and he had dropped everything where it was. A moment frozen in time.

It was so tempting to leave just as it was. Close to door and never disturb this study-a time capsule, in memoriam.

Except that it was her office now. And she needed the space, and she needed it clean and neat, and that meant everything had to go; the old paperwork, the ash tray, the bottle. The paper work could be archived, the ash tray dumped, and Walter could have the cigarettes if he liked-he claimed to have quit smoking years ago, but the aroma of tobacco clung to his uniform and Integra imagined he must be sneaking smokes in the lavatory.

Integra rolled the bottle in her hands, watching the dark amber liquid swirl within the glass.

With resolve, she turned around and left the abandoned study and silently descended the grand staircase to the first floor, weaved down a narrow corridor and found her way to the sublevel stairs and climbed down into the moist, cool darkness. After some walking, she followed a sharp turn and found the hidden alcove the vampire had claimed as his own.

It was odd. Alucard had no sense of privacy-had no "room," just lived at the end of the corridor like a dragon at the back of a cave. That is where he had moved his coffin to, and that's where the girl knew she could find him.

On her way, Integra started to have second thoughts. On one hand, sobriety was a virtue. Regular drinking was a symptom of inner sickness that alcohol exacerbated, rather than cured, over time.

On the other hand, it was almost comforting to know Alucard took a drink now and again. It made it him seem more human.

It was that human side she longed to touch. She wanted to know him, know_ about_ him, and not from prying information out of a guarded, reluctant Walter. All Integra knew of the vampire was that he was great and terrible and unpleasant, and she was starting to suspect that, really, that's all there was to it.

She wanted to have a drink with him.

It was what _men_ did. When guests came to the house, her father would invite them into his study or into the library, pry open the brandy or the scotch and pour a few drinks. Then they would talk.

It was daytime, and so she expected the vampire was tucked away in his coffin when she went down to the sublevels. The coffin was black, lacquered and narrow...too narrow, the girl felt, for a vampire that _size_. Whenever she saw Alucard, he seemed to fill the room. There was no clear distinction between his body and the _nothing_-he consumed the darkness, and the shadowy corners seethed with his angry, threatening essence. But during the day, his true form could fit neatly inside the small coffin. Integra knew he must not be at _all_ the size she imagined. Nonetheless, he looked very tall.

She would not disturb him.

She had a present for him.

Near his coffin was a chair and an end table. Alucard had claimed the lonely dining room chair as his and somehow smuggled it down to his lair.

Integra had been surprised and somewhat irked at his theft, mostly because the dining room chairs were part of a set and now there was an irregular number. She politely offered him any other chair in the house instead. The vampire politely told her to go fuck herself. The chair was _his_ territory now, had his smells, belonged to him.

"Chair-Gate" had been a serious _thing _for two days. Integra viewed his obstinacy as an insult and challenge to her budding authority-just days after he had so dramatically pledged his loyalty to her.

Walter carefully and speedily talked Integra out of making an issue out of it-reminding her that Hellsing's family fortune had been Dracula's before VanHelsing took it, and a great portion of that wealth stemmed from the pillage, then sale of, the vampire's various properties and belongings, including his castle in the Carpathian mountains.

Walter also suggested that Integra never, _ever_ bring it up.

After that day, Integra looked upon that chair with a kind of guilt. When she saw Alucard possessively wrap a spindly, shadowy claw around it, eyeing her suspiciously, she felt sorry for him. What a petty thing to defend.

Integra approached the coffin. Next to it, there was a dusty bottle of wine. She placed the scotch beside it. In the empty air, it made a loud 'clank' noise, and Integra cringed, knowing how close that must be to the vampire's sensitive ears. She waited, however, and no sound came from the coffin. At that, she turned to leave.

"What is that?"

Integra kept her spine stiff, resisting the instinct to cringe. "Scotch," she croaked, her timid voice echoing in the sublevels. The cowardice in her own voice shamed her. She took a deep breath and turned and said firmly, with resolve; "I'd like to share this with you. My father would often give a drink with guests, as a way to welcome them to his home." She took a step forward and presented the bottle to the seated vampire. "It's…a hollow gesture to you, I'm sure but…I want to welcome you."

"I'm not a guest, and I'm not new to this house. I've lived here longer than _you_." Alucard eyed the unfamiliar bottle suspiciously, slinking from his coffin. Abraham VanHelsing had often drugged him by mixing chemicals into the blood he was fed, and the vampire would wake up hours later in pain, his body often naked and twisted cruelly in iron chains as the metaphysician and his assistants pried open his organs and examined his internal, undead workings. He would shriek and howl in terror and hate, only to be beaten savagely by the startled human assistants and ultimately force-fed the drug again and then choked until he lost consciousness.

Much of those first years were a blur.

Alucard unconsciously touched his ribs, feeling the ghost of scalpels tickling his diaphragm.

Integra's shoulder's sagged. She retracted the bottle and pressed it against her chest. "You won't accept my gift?"

Alucard frowned. He had never been given a "gift" before, not by a _Hellsing_. They had never considered his comfort or made sentimental gestures of any kind-save once when Abraham begrudgingly returned Alucard's coffin to him and even allowed him a small room where he could sleep in it, undisturbed. It had been forty years coming, and Alucard was near hysterical upon seeing it again-having believed his 'kingdom' had been chopped up for firewood decades ago.

Alucard squinted at the small girl, considering her offering carefully. "I will have a drink with you."

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Integra poured generously.

Alucard placed his hand over his cup, nervously guarding it. "Not so much."

Integra blinked at the vampire. Then she looked at her own glass. She was a anxious wreck. She poured herself a full glass. She couldn't look weak next to him.

Alucard stared at her glass, then looked at his half filled one. He took his hand away. "A little more for me," he urged.

Integra smiled and filled up his glass the rest of the way. "To us," Integra saluted.

Her youthful enthusiasm both irritated and pleased Alucard. "To us, _master_," he agreed.

Integra tipped back her glass and downed the shot in one gulp. She placed her empty shooter on the table. "Ah. Burns," she said pleasantly. "Yikes."

Alucard snickered, then tipped back his own glass and immediately regretted it. The haze of scotch burned his eyes like rubbing alcohol. He paused in horror. What had he agreed to _drink_? But he could see Integra's curious face through the bottom of the glass, colored golden by the liquid.

"Savoring it?" Integra inquired.

"Yes," Alucard responded quickly. He couldn't take a conservative sip now. He sucked in the drink quickly, and despite the fire, pain and bitterness, he managed to swallow and keep tears from welling up in his eyes. His fist clenched around the glass and he trembled. "Uh," he grunted, placing the glass gingerly on the table. "That was…"

He heard Integra pouring another glass.

His eyes flew open. Integra's glass was full again, and she was pouring him a second.

Alucard was dumfounded. She couldn't be serious. She could _not_ be serious. She didn't really expect him to sit and do _shots_ with her? Was every member of this lowly family a horrible drunk?

But as the vampire watched in mortified dread as the little girl innocently and casually tossed back her second drink without so much as a flinch, Alucard felt his stomach sink and a warm blush rise to his cheeks. Yes, that's _exactly_ what she intended.

Not to be outdone, Alucard took up his glass as well and nodded at her, tipping it back.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

Once the drinking had begun, she realized she had no idea when it was appropriate to stop. After the second glass, Integra knew she had made a terrible mistake, feeling her stomach burn, threatening to heave back what she had swallowed.

Integra hadn't meant to down her first glass so quickly–just that once the fiery liquid had touched her lips, she wanted to be done with it as soon as possible. Then Alucard matched her rate, shot for shot, and since they had nothing to talk about, there was nothing to do but drink and keep drinking.

Integra eyed Alucard warily. He was staring at her just as intensely as she stared at him. She looked down at her freshly topped-off glass, at the threatening amber liquid, both cool and fiery. She felt herself cringing inwardly. Her stomach was on fire. Her nose and cheeks and lips were tingling. She felt "fuzzy" all over, her cheeks and nose numb. She couldn't bear to lift the glass and take another drink. She wasn't even sure that if she moved her hand towards the glass, her hand would find it. Her perception of distance was exaggerated. But, she still had the wherewithal to recognize she was getting drunk. If she continued to drink, her ability to recognize her own handicap would fade. She knew she needed a reason to slow down her rate of consumption, or an excuse to stop drinking all together, before something ugly happened.

Conversation would certainly help. Of course, she was terrified of opening her mouth and finding her speech slurred and incomprehensible. She had come down here with the intention of earning Alucard's friendship and instead she was probably going to leave him thinking she was a fool.

Integra looked back up at Alucard.

He was closely watching her, silent, his eyes behind his mirrored yellow lenses unreadable.

She couldn't endure his judging face. She picked up her glass and downed it, squeezing her eyes shut. "Shall I pour you another?" she inquired without waiting for his response, reaching for the bottle.

Alucard's shoulders slumped.

He was ready to die. He shivered, wavering back and forth in his seat, dizzy and sick. While Integra was of a fraction of his mass and had no tolerance for alcohol, she had the advantage of a functioning human digestive system, some lunch in her stomach to slow the rate of absorption, and a liver that could filter toxins. Alucard didn't have a digestive system. What he swallowed immediately entered his blood stream without filtration, as if a needle had injective the fluid right through his skin. He could feel the burning liquid coursing through his veins, inundating his sinuses and tear ducts.

Alucard wanted to say, "I can't drink alcohol. I'm a vampire. Please cut my stomach open so I can let this poison drain from my body," he couldn't manage more than a weak half-grunt, half-whine. He stared helplessly at Integra, unable to admit weakness, unable to admit defeat.

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An hour later, they were both hammered beyond comprehension.

Integra had played the part of the grown-up bravely, but her self-discipline could not fool her young metabolism. She found herself crouched under the stairs, waste bin between her knees, vomiting a foul fluid who's acrid smell made her nauseous as soon as her evacuating made her feel better, creating a cruel, continuous circle.

Alucard realized too late she had been fooling him with her pretend tolerance. By that time, however, his impending death had become remarkably funny. He was beyond drunk, had been transported to a reality no inebriated human consciousness had ever seen, the tissues of his flesh saturated, his pours literally leaking alcohol, his clothing soaked in the rank liquid. He lay on the stone floor in a pool of his own filth, gravity having defeating him some hours ago, chatting on good-naturedly with the ceiling in some combination of Romanian and English.

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The bottle of scotch lay discarded and empty on the floor.

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Alucard's familiars were hard at work to save their host.

The vampire himself lay unconscious on the ground, but his black, slithering shadows lazily climbed from his corpse. Their bleary red eyes blinked sleepily at the world. They were unformed blobs, a far cry from his hell-hound empire, but they were loyal, determined and focused. They crawled along the floor, digging their black tendrils into the grooves in the stone and pulling themselves, until enough of them had emerged from his body to be a formidable force. Then they promptly turned around, crawling back towards their master, their white needle teeth appearing from their little mouths.

Tiny black claws pulled open the vampire's shirt, sending the buttons flying in every direction. Where the buttons lay, they melted into little black pools. The pools became cockroaches and anxiously crawled back to Alucard.

Once the familiars had bared Alucard's white stomach, they viciously dove in, biting and chewing through his flesh, burrowing down inside until they punctured his stomach and streams of alcohol erupted like a fountain.

Alucard woke up with a start, jolting to an upright position. He clutched his stomach, crushes some of his own familiar which then oozed between his fingers, reformed and slithered away. With a groan, the vampire fell backwards, writhing in agony. In his panic, he vomited, the stinking alcohol sputtering from his mouth. He rolled over to his side, coughing, gasping, crying as the poison rushed up this throat and out involuntarily.

The black demon familiars crawled up the back of Alucard's neck and tugged at his slick black hair, tucking the strands behind his ears and keeping them out of the path of the evacuating alcohol. One lonely demon patted Alucard's scalp, as if in comfort.

Alucard rose onto his hands and knees, and the fluids continued to drain from his mouth and the holes in his stomach. Alcohol-tinged tears streamed from his eyes and dripped down his nose, burning as it went. He shivered and shook. When his wounds and mouth dripped dry, he found he couldn't move, his muscles locked.

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Integra awoke on the bottom step of the sub-level stairs, her forehead resting on a near-full waste bin of her own vomit. She sat up quickly, her face scrunched up, feeling nausea overtake her once more, her stomach rumbling. Oh, the smell. Her stomach muscles contracted, and she was ready to start heaving anew.

_Help-help-help_, came an eerie little hiss.

Through blood-shot eyes, Integra looked dizzily between her knees, blinking. She fought to keep the muscles of her stomach still. With effort, she looked around.

_Help-help._

There, in the corridor, came a…blob.

Integra blinked uncomprehendingly at it.

The blob rolled along, coming towards her. Behind it, smaller blobs followed it. The little blobs had dozens of red eyes looking off in every direction. When the black creatures were very close to Integra, some of them ran into each other and melded, while others crept up the stairs next to the girl. Slimy black tendrils extended from the unformed massed to pull at Integra's socks and shoelaces and the hem of her skirt. Their little hands had five fingers, but were tiny, like mice hands, but there were hundreds of them, all weak, but all pulling insistently as if they were demanding that she rise.

_Help-help-help-help_, they hissed at different intervals, a chorus of faint children's voices.

Integra reached out with her hand and touched a large blob that was close to her. She found the texture against her palm cold, slippery, and when she pulled her hand away, there was a filmy residue left on her skin. She looked at her hand and saw little black dots stuck on her skin. They suddenly animated and pooled in the middle of her palm, and an angry first erupted from the blackness and shook at her, then slithered to the edge of her hand and jumped down into the larger black blob.

Integra sighed, her stomach twisting. "Take me to your master," she commanded.

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"Bloody hell," Integra bemoaned, "What a God-awful _mess_." She knelt down beside the vampire and tried to shake him awake. When she grabbed the lapels of his red jacket, his putrid, fluid sickness splashed up onto her, hitting her in the face.

She released him and spun around, doubled over, her hands in the air, her mouth agape and her eyes shut tightly. Yes, she was dripping in puked-up alcohol. It was on her lips, in her eyes, dripping down her bangs and her chin. "Oh my God," she whined. "Oh my God, what have I done? What have I done?"

She turned back to her semi-conscious vampire. "Oh, God," she repeated frantically, "What have I done?" She tried to think quickly. She had to clean Alucard and herself, she had to rinse away the vomit and the piss and the whatever stagnant pool of filth Alucard was laying in before they were discovered. She knew there was an infrequently used laboratory in the sublevels, and there was a decontamination room there with a shower. She hoped the plumbing still worked.

Integra knelt down once again and grabbed Alucard by the wrist and pulled with all her might. "Please! Please!" she begged impotently. "Please get up! No one can see us like this!"

After a few minutes, Alucard's eyes fluttered open and he rolled over onto his stomach and managed to rise to his hands and knees but was unable to move any further. Integra crouched beside him and snaked his long, lanky arm around her neck and tried to offer him support. He was much too heavy for her and the large vampire kept falling back to his knees. Integra found herself practically dragging Alucard to the lab.

"This isn't working," Integra said, admitting defeat. "Stay right here." She ran on unsteady legs to the lab on her own, remembering there was a folded wheelchair by the door. She went and opened the door, flicking on the yellow florescent lights. The lab was mostly empty of the old medical equipment, the counters and cabinets covered in a film of dust, but the wheel chair was in the closet, just as she remembered it. She unfolded it quickly and raced back to Alucard with it, it's rusty wheels squealing harshly.

Integra locked the wheels before her vampire, who was sitting up, but swaying. "Up you go," Integra urged, getting behind Alucard and shoving her arms under his armpits and locking her hands together, and with every ounce of her strength she lifted him up. Alucard strained and reached for the chair to aide her, putting his knees on the seat and grabbing the back of the chair, hanging his head over the back.

Integra stepped back and looked at the vampire quizzically. Had he never seen a wheelchair?  
"Turn around," she told him. "Turn around. T-turn around and put your butt in the chair."

Alucard just hung onto the chair, his knees on the seat, his rear end lifted in the air. "I can't."

Integra made impatient gestures. "Just turn around and face me and put your butt in the chair."

"I can't. I don't know where I am," Alucard said.

Integra hung her head. "Fine. Fine. Just stay like you are and don't let go." She went behind the chair and she was facing Alucard. She grabbed the handles and pushed the chair towards the lab. Alucard looked around with uncertainty.

Once at the lab, Integra navigated the chair and its undead passenger through the fixtures and examination rooms until they arrive at the decontamination area. It was a wide, white room with glossy white tiles, harsh florescent lights and several shower heads and a single large drain in the center, similar to a communal locker room shower. There was a lip at the shower threshold, so the wheelchair could go no farther.

"Come on," Integra beckoned, getting behind Alucard's rump and hugging his torso and pulling him off the chair. His long, spindly legs toed their way to the floor and he managed to dislodge himself without falling on his young master, through he clutched to her for support. His head hung limply. "Oh God," he moaned. "My stomach hurts."

Integra dragged herself and her undead servant to the nearest shower head. As she let go of Alucard to reach for the faucet lever, Alucard sank to the floor, his back resting against the tile wall.

The girl turned on the water full blast and icy cold water rushed from the nozzle and doused them both. Integra shrieked at the rude invasion and Alucard howled. Integra yanked on the knob with all her strength, and after a few minutes, the chilled water began to warm up. Within minutes, a steam began to rise from the stream. The filth that they had both been caked in began to swirl the drain.

Integra kept her clothes on and allowed the water to saturate everything she wore. She had no soap, so she just scrubbed her body rigorously with her hands. She would take a more thorough shower later. Once she felt sufficiently cleansed, she went to work on Alucard. He was dressed in many layers, too many to keep on, so she sloughed off his heavy red jacket and his black blazer and unknotted his cravat and tossed it aside, opening his collar and allowing the water to sluice down his chest. She looked down at his boots and decided to take them off and rise them as well. Who knew what disgusting mess had pooled in his boots. Once she had peeled off the boots, she rinsed his feet, rubbing in between his toes.

At that moment, Alucard said drowsily, "I'm so sorry. I made a fool of myself."

Integra looked up, blinking. "How have you made yourself look any more foolish than I? This is all my fault. I don't know what I was thinking."

Alucard shook his head. "I should have told you I couldn't digest it. Not quantities like that. But I didn't want you to think less of me. I should have been honest about my limitations. I'm sorry. Damn it, did I get sick on you?"

Integra thought carefully. She realized Alucard had no memory of her getting sick. For all he knew, she had held her alcohol down and he was the only one who'd lost it. "I forgive you," Integra assured him. "Let's get you cleaned up before someone discovers us."

"You'll keep this between us?" Alucard inquired.

"It's our secret," she replied quickly.

_The end._


End file.
